The family is growing… and we’re moving!

Wait, wait… this is a post that you can read literally and metaphorically at the same time.

First and foremost, our (human) family has grown in the last year — the  third “m” was born. At the same time (not really, but, yeah… well, mmmh… those last months were kind of a blur), we also acquired another press. A Boston Tiegel hand operated platen press (more on this soon). So, the “print family” has also grown ;)

Second, due to this increase in both family numbers, we’re also changing our private press name and address (both virtual and physical). You will be able to find us here from now on: https://m3np.wordpress.com/

 

 

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Summer holiday is coming…

Trimmed 350g/m2 offset paper stock ready

… This means that it is time to continue our project(s). This time, the 2018 postcard means that we’ll take a 16 x 100 cm illustrated poem challenge.

As we did around this time last year, we’ve started by trimming the 350g/m2 paper stock — we had to cut all the 150 sheets by hand with a x-acto knife –, and in the end we’ll trim the folded harmonic with a guillotine.

On the first days of august we’ll start printing the base/background colors while the author finishes the poem text.

Laser engraving, Letterpress embossing

Laser engraved MDF punch and counter

We are planning our 2018 Letterpress project. This year, we have a few surprises lined-up. 

Starting with embossing experimentation. Paulo Gabriel, a friend and colleague from work, helped out laser engraving this “infinite loop” in MDF composite, that will set the visual tone of the booklet.
Tonight, we’ll give it a go on the small Adana, and see how the embossing works out on the 350g/m2 cover paper stock. Fingers crossed!

Stay tuned for additional and updates from June until the end of August ;)

“Obrigado” thank you card

One of the early “ugly” ducklings print proofs

A few months ago (almost a year now), Catarina – a “fora da caixa” friend – help us print a small batch of thank you card notes. We only needed 5, but as we were handing them to designers and printers fond of letterpress printed materials, it made sense to do them in the small Adana.
We printed the word “OBRIGADO” (that we actually had to print “QBRIGADO” with an upside-down “Q” for the lack of extra “O”s) in 1,5 inch british grotesque wood type, on 350 g/m2 textured watercolor paper.

Leftover and different format thank you cards

As you can see in the image, many didn’t come out perfect. We had to get the gear ready for the interviews AND print the postcards in a couple of hours. But I tend to like the dirty deffective ines better anyway ;)
In the end, it was a really well spent evening.

Happy new year

2017 postcard-booklet printed, bound and ready to send. All 100 of them!

In the last years, we’ve sent “happy new year” SMS, emails and postcards. Last year, we printed one in letterpress. It was awesome to do. And, as a result, to engage with friends and family by traditional mail. So, this year, we’ve decided to do it again.

We have finished printing and binding (sewing) this years’ postcards. The caveat being that it is a postcard-booklet, or is it the other way around? Anyhow, we’ll start mailing them today to wish everyone:

May 2017 be an excellent year for us all! ;)

 

Struggling with the sewing machine

Test runs of the sewn bindings on dummy booklets

After a couple of rounds of testing with different lines, and line tension in the Singer machine we’ve ended up sewing about 30 booklets… But then the machine broke!… We managed to borrow an older Oliva machine that served us well — thank you Guida!

We’ve finished sewing all the booklets. All 100 of the planned edition by the end of day. We’ve also threw in a few experimental bindings / printer proofs in the mix. They won’t be distributed in the same edition, but it was fun to do anyway.

And that’s it. Booklet finished (we still have to dispatch them).

Booklet print sprint

Marta checking the colors and the registration (or lack of it!) on the final proofs.

After an intensive two-day sprint, and 1800 hand presses on the little Adana, we’ve finally finished printing the booklet. It consists on a A5 cover, plus a double A4 imposition plate of an 8 page, work and tumble printing scheme.

While composing the text, we’ve decided to add an extra green color illustration layer to the all-black-on-white text layout.

After a day of rest, we’ll be sewing the booklet (for the binding). And that will be it!